


Parallels (PG)

by vinegardog



Category: Farscape
Genre: Attempt at Humor, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-02
Updated: 2020-07-02
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:42:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25032643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vinegardog/pseuds/vinegardog
Summary: Quarantine inspired fic - how the Moyans respond to the lockdown and parallers with some behaviours from celebrities and politicians during the 2020 lockdowns due to Covid 19.Links to the "news" which the fic refers to are given.
Relationships: John Crichton/Aeryn Sun
Kudos: 4





	Parallels (PG)

Written for SC120 - Groundhog Day hosted by strangewebby

Setting: Some time (maybe a year) after PKWs.

No major spoilers.

Word count: circa 3600

Rating: PG

No beta, so be kind and don’t expect too much! Lockdown has turned my brain into mush and anesthetized my imagination.

Warning: The fic contains references to “news” reported recently about how some celebrities reacted to the restrictions of lockdown. I have nothing against a couple of the ones mentioned, I just used the news for comic purposes. I do detest the politicians though. However the only one I know personally and well is the person mentioned in the last quarantine day and she is an awful cow for sure. ;)

**PARALLELS (PG)**

Some time after what became known in the galaxy as the Peacekeeper Wars, a deadly plague swept through the Uncharted Territories and forced entire planets to go into lockdown to limit the spread of the disease.

Some planets dealt with the pandemic better than others.

Where locals flouted directions and advice by scientists and doctors and were moreover incited by their feckless leaders to defy all restrictions on account of economic and political considerations, the plague spread like wildfire.

Those planets soon acquired the worst of reputations and were looked upon by others with anger and dismay.

The better governed and therefore safer to access planets were the ones that ship crews would turn and appeal to in order to be granted the opportunity to refuel and to acquire necessary, basic provisions during their quarantines.

The guidelines for docking on these planets were strict and, if disrespected, resulted in life bans for the entire crew.

Only one person per ship was allowed to disembark at any one time to complete the necessary transactions.

Wearing adequate protective gear was mandatory to be granted access.

One arn was the time allotted to each visitor with no extensions granted.

The ship, once the arn was over, was made to leave dock and was not allowed to return for another four weekens to obtain further provisions.

This had been now going on for close to three monens and there was no clear end in sight as no cure or vaccine had been found yet even though scientists from the most advanced planets had pooled their knowledge and resources together to come up with a solution to the devastating crisis.

Moya and her crew, just like pretty much everybody else in that sector of space, were caught in this continued lockdown and were required to observe strict quarantine.

**Day 82 of quarantine on Moya - John and Aeryn’s quarters**  
**(Or Justin Timberlake day/**  
**https://www.insider.com/justin-timberlake-son-parenting-social-distancing-comments-backlash-2020-4)**

“Hey, Aeryn, honey, have you gone deaf by any chance?” John asked, smiling through gritted teeth, unable to stop sarcasm dripping from every word.

“What!?” His wife barked in reply. She was lying on their bed, face up, one arm thrown across her eyes to block the rest of the universe out. Her whole body was tense, emanating irritation and frustration from every pore despite the supine position on the bed.

John took a deep breath and replied, still unable to avoid sarcasm: “D is crying. He obviously needs attention. Probably needs changing. Would you mind ever so much doing the honours for ONCE? I’m busy here trying to fix this damn comm badge that went on the fritz.”

Aeryn flung her arm off her face, sat up straight in their bed and in a cold, dead voice she said: “No. No way. No! This 24-arn parenting is inhumane. The cleaning, the wiping, the feeding, the playing with him, the lack of sleep...this is not something that anybody should be asked to do. It is not right and it is not fair. Nobody should be stuck minding a child every minute of the day without hired help. Nobody. _EVER_!” The last “ever” turned suddenly into a shrill, semi-hysterical cry of protest.

She then got up, picked up her training clothes from a nearby chair, ignored her son’s now stunned and more subdued whinging and her husband's annoyed look of reproach and walked out with a final: “I’m going to my training room. Do not disturb me unless this frelling lockdown is lifted and we can finally leave this frelling ship!”

**Day 83 of quarantine on Moya - Pilot’s Den**  
**(or Dominic Cummings day/**  
**https://www.theguardian.com/politics/video/2020/may/25/dominic-cummings-says-he-drove-to-barnard-castle-to-test-his-eyesight-video)**

John walked into Pilot’s den with little D fussing in his arms. The child’s little face was blotchy from crying and he was evidently out of sorts and crotchety.

“What is wrong with your spawn, Commander?” Pilot asked, clearly also in a bad mood, eyeing them wearily as they crossed the bridge towards his station. The lockdown had not affected his lifestyle in any way of course but the generally volatile state of mind of the crew had finally had an impact on his usually calm nerves.

“I dunno, Pilot.” John said miserably. “I think he misses his mother. Aeryn left our quarters yesterday after we had a spat, and she has not come back yet.”

“Maybe you should go look for her. Just saying…” Pilot snarked.

“Nah.” John replied. “Let her calm down first. This lockdown is driving her bonkers. She went from depression, to anger and now rebellion. We’ll see what comes next… and let’s hope we survive it.”

Pilot nodded but said nothing.

“Minding cranky D’Argo 24/7 is kinda tiring though, I must admit…” John added and then looked with begging hope in his eyes at the gentle giant behind the console.

“You needn’t look for help here, Commander. I’m busy!” Pilot swiftly put an end to any possible request about to be issued to him and made it very clear how he felt about being asked to babysit under these trying circumstances.

‘Well, strike one.’ John thought to himself but he was not ready to give up on the idea of a few arns of uninterrupted sleep, at least not just yet. So he asked:

“Pilot, do you know where Pip is? Can you get the DRDs to locate her?”Hope fuelling him up again as it always did at the worst of times.

“No. I cannot. Chiana is no longer on Moya.”

“WHAT?! Whaddaya mean she is not on Moya!” John asked, agitated, anxious and disappointed all at the same time.

“She left about 3 arns ago on one of Moya’s pods. She said she _HAD_ to leave, that it was imperative that she did so.” Pilot explained.

“What do you mean she _HAD_ to leave? There is a pandemic out there! We are supposed to be on lockdown! Why did you let her leave?!” John protested, taking out his frustrations on poor Pilot.

“I do not appreciate your tone of voice, Commander.” Pilot said coolly. “I am not the crew’s minder.” He huffed and added: “I did remind her about the restrictions in place but she cursed me and then she suitably ignored me and left regardless.” The ‘and good riddance’ was not said in words by Pilot but was expressed loud and clear anyway by his tone.

“Get her on the comms NOW… please?” John ordered, before remembering his manners.

Pilot snorted, then hummed ominously but did as asked and opened the comms between Moya and the transport pod that Chiana had requisitioned.

“Chiana? Chiana, can you hear me? This is John. Please respond.”

The comms crackled and his request was met by silence.

“Chiana, I know you are there, just answer the frelling comms or I swear…” John threatened but was interrupted before ending his empty ultimatum.

“What do you want, Crichton?” Chi’s voice finally came back, clearly expressing her lack of interest in a long conversation.

“I want you to tell me why you left Moya. You know we are in lockdown. If you’re stopped by any of the local patrols from nearby planets, we are gonna be banned from all of them! You selfish little…”

“Oh shut up, Crichton! Stop being a stuffy old man and unclench!” She interrupted him, full of defiant insolence.

John ignored her comments and continued: “What possible excuse could you have to justify your gallivanting around the place, putting us all at risk when we are all stuck in here trying to do our duty?”

“Well, my new eyes needed testing. I wanted to make sure that the Diagnosan who transplanted them didn’t screw up and that my vision was fully back to its very best. And what better way to do that than taking a pod for a spin? Is that good enough for you?”

“That’s the most ridiculous excuse I have ever heard in my admittedly pathetic life!” John retorted before bringing himself to calm down and asking in a reasonable, persuasive voice: “Chiana, will you please come back now that you have tested your eyesight?”

“No! I don’t need to be told what to do. I - I do what I want, when I want to do it and screw you and all the others for always wanting to do the right thing! You’re a bunch of compliant greebols.” She said mockingly.

Then, suddenly, the comms went dead and John knew that there would be no point in trying to get her back. When she put her mind to it, she could be the most arrogant, the most stubborn and the most annoying of tralks this side of the UTs.

**Day 84 of quarantine - shopping day**  
**(or Donald Trump day https://edition.cnn.com/2020/06/03/politics/donald-trump-bunker-secret-service-protests/index.html)**

“Rygel, please listen to me.” John followed the Dominar down Moya’s corridors as the Hynerian zoomed towards the hangar bay as fast as his thronesled would let him.

John hurried after him while, at the same time, talking to him in a reasonable way, trying to get through to him the importance of following the rules. “I know this is your turn to go get provisions and I know you are perfectly capable of accomplishing this task without any problem…” John lied, knowing that stroking Rygel’s enormous ego may have a slim chance of working.

“Of course I am perfectly capable of accomplishing this task. I am a Dominar and your superior in every way.” Rygel gloated and confirmed with a nod.

“Well, yes, yes, you are.” John rolled his eyes behind Rygel’s back and continued. “Please remember, when you land on the planet, you will need to wear your protective gear. It is mandatory…”

“Nobody tells me what to do.” Rygel declared.

“Well, these guys are telling you what to do and if you don’t, we are gonna go hungry. Do you wanna go hungry, Guido?”

Rygel just snorted in reply but he marginally slowed his sled down, which suggested to John that the threat of going hungry might have successfully caught his attention.

“The law is that, when you leave the pod and proceed into the commerce centre, you have to wear a protective mask to avoid breathing any harmful germs onto the other beings in there. Do you hear me?”

“Yes, yes, I hear you. Leave pod, wear mask, don’t breathe on people.” Rygel summed up dismissively as they arrived at the pod that was to be his means of transport to the planet below.

John made a last desperate attempt to stop him from going: “You know, Ryg? This is a lot of hassle - the shopping, the mask and all that. Why don’t you let me go? I’d be happy to volunteer and go in your place instead…”

Rygel stopped his sled, turned around to face the Human, snorted and replied: “84 days stuck on Moya, Crichton! 84 long, frelling days! I need to get off this ship! I will bite you if you come any closer and if you try to take my place. Do you hear me? I will bite you hard!” Then he turned, boarded the pod and left for the planet below looking forward to an arn of purchases and of relative freedom.

Less than half an arn later, the pod docked back on Moya.

John waited in the cargo bay for Rygel to disembark - hands on hips, a frown on his face.

The Dominar had commed them on his way back to say that he had been inexplicably expelled from the planet before completing the intended purchases and that no other member of the crew would be allowed down on to it as they were now all banned.

The result of Rygel’s trip had come as no surprise to anybody on board Moya but it was still disappointing and extremely worrying given that they were, at a push, down to maybe a day or two of rations.

It took what if felt like an eternity for the pod door to open and for the Dominar finally to emerge.

“Well, Sluggo, what did you do to be kicked out?” John asked through gritted teeth when Rygel finally had the courage to show his face and take the heat for his failure.

“I wasn’t kicked out and I did nothing wrong!” Rygel denied everything emphatically in the hope that the stupid Human would fall for it. But, alas it was not to be.

“Yes, you were! The authorities confirmed it to us when we contacted them after you commed us on your way back. They kicked you out and there’s no two ways about it!”

“Fake news! This is all a conspiracy against me! They are just jealous of my status and success in my past life as a Dominar and are spouting lies about me!” Rygel said but the whimper that accompanied the end of his grandiose protest made for a pathetic - albeit infuriating - thing to hear.

“Seriously, Rygel, what the hell did you do? Or didn’t do?”

“Well, I took my mask off while in the commerce centre.” Rygel finally admitted.

“But why? Why would you do that when you knew that it was compulsory and that you would get banned if you took it off?”

“It was hard to breathe in it. It was sweaty and itchy and utterly emasculating. And, anyway, have you ever tried to keep a mask on your face when you don’t have a nose? It’s frelling impossible!” He said, inching his way around John in an attempt to make an escape and stop listening to the Human’s endless rebukes.

“Rygel, you know what? You are a loser and I bet your subjects on Hyneria are happy to be rid of you!” John shot at his back as the Dominar approached the hangar bay door. “And where do you think you are going now?” John shouted after him.

“I’m tired.” Rygel replied sheepishly. “I’ll be in my bunker… I mean, my bunk!”.

**Day 85 of quarantine - in the mess hall**  
**(Or Ellen DeGeneres day/**  
**https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-ellen-degeneres-criticised-after-comparing-mansion-quarantine-to-being-in-jail-11970796)**

“Commander?” Pilot commed John, who was in his quarters trying to calm a squalling D down by bouncing him up and down in his arms.

“Yes, Pilot. What is it?” John asked distractedly.

“I think you might be interested to know that Noranti seems to… um… seems to have lost her sanity. Some action may be required in the matter.” Pilot explained.

John was exhausted. D hadn’t slept for more than an arn in a row for the last three days; Aeryn still refused to return to their quarters and he was very close - oh so very close! - to having enough of his shipmates’ quarantine induced woes and misbehaviours and to telling them all to go to hell.

“Can you call somebody else for help? I’m kinda busy here.” He said hoping to get off the hook.

“Well, I have already tried to comm Officer Sun and Chiana. And I even tried the Dominar but nobody is answering my summons. So you are it, I’m afraid.”

John cursed under his breath but knew that he was the only one Granny might listen to anyway, so he put D down in his crib and asked for clarifications: “Fine! What’s wrong with the Old Woman? And what do you mean with ‘she’s lost her sanity’? She never had much of it to start off with…”

“Well,” Pilot explained, “the DRDs report hearing a lot of noise coming from the mess hall where Noranti currently is. They have witnessed banging of pots and hexes being cast upon various inanimate objects. She also appears to be more agitated than usual and extremely vexed at something.”

John sighed: “Did she swallow or inhale any of her herbs or powders that you know of, Pilot?”

“I have no idea. The DRDs stationed in the mess hall don’t seem to think so.” Pilot replied.

“Okay, Pilot.” John said heading off to check this new emergency out. “Please have the DRDs keep an eye on D and see if you can get his mother to mind him for a spell?” Then he added under his breath:”Not that I’m holding my breath about it…”

“Will do.” Pilot agreed.

When John got to within a couple of dozen steps of the mess hall, he heard what the DRDs had reported hearing: pots being banged and thrown, Traskan curses being cast followed by fevered mutterings.

“Hey, Granny,” he said gently from the doorway when he got there, “How are you doing?”

“I can’t do it. I can’t. I just can’t. Moya is too small. Too, too small!” She said, wringing her hands and walking around and around in a circle on the spot.

“Moya is too small for what, Granny?” John tried again to get some sense out of her.

“For me to be on! For 85 solar days! 85! Too small. Not enough space.” She said, walking right up to him and bringing her face a mere dench from him, crazed eyes fixed on his. “This is like a prison!”

John tried to calm her down by placing his hands on her frail, old shoulders and pitching his voice to a comforting, soothing tone: “Granny, please listen to me. Moya is huge. There’s plenty of space to move around in her. You couldn’t walk all of her corridors in a weeken if you tried…”

“Nonononono! She is a prison. It’s like being in prison!” Noranti insisted, frantically shaking her head from side to side.

“Well, technically she was a prison transport but…” John attempted to say.

“Nonononono. This is like a prison. A prison!” Noranti shrieked.

John realised that there was nothing anyone could possibly say to calm the hysterical old woman down, so he slowly backed away and, once out of hearing range of her, he commed Pilot again: “Pilot. There’s no talking to her. Please dispatch one of the DRDs to fetch a tranquiliser and a tranquiliser gun from Zhaan’s old medical station.”

“You are going to shoot a tranquiliser dart into Noranti?” Pilot asked, appalled.

“Yep! And I’m gonna make the dose an extra large one.”

**Day 90 of quarantine - in Pilot’s Den**  
**(or Vinegardog’s day)**

“Thank you all for coming… eventually.” Pilot said snarkily to the crew who, after several summons ranging from begging to threatening, had finally convened in his den. “We have a problem with Commander Crichton.”

“Where is he?” Aeryn asked, looking around and only then noticing that her husband was missing. “And where is my son?”

“Well, your son is currently asleep in his crib in your quarters but he won’t be for long so you will need to go and look after him whether you like it or not. The DRDs can only do so much to assist him.” Pilot said to her, reproachfully.

“But why is John not with him? Why didn’t he take him along to wherever he went?” Aeryn asked angrily, dreading having to go back to the bellyaching little monster that she had managed to avoid for over a weeken now.

“John Crichton has currently locked himself up in a large cell on tier 27 and he has also barricaded all access portals to the entire tier.”

“So, why should we care?” Rygel said.

“Yeah, who cares? All he does is preach about this stupid lockdown and how we are not following the rules.” Chiana agreed.

“He had the DRDs shoot me with a tranquiliser dart. I passed out for three solar days!” Noranti said, still bitter about the whole thing.

Pilot stared at each of them in turn. “John Crichton is indeed a painful individual to cohabitate with for this long under a lockdown, I agree. However he is also our friend and I think we should stage an intervention to coax him out of his self-imposed isolation.”

“Why? What’s he doing that needs our intervention?” Chiana asked combatively.

Pilot explained: “He has asked the DRDs to build him a couch and…”

“What’s a couch?” Rygel interrupted, in case this turned out to be something of interest to him.

“A couch is a decadent, soft piece of seating furniture that humans have in their homes. Remember from our time on Earth? It’s mainly made up of cushions if I recall correctly…” Aeryn explained.

“That sounds horrific. Why would he want to have such a soft place to sit upon when he can have a bench or the floor instead?” Chiana asked.

“You know how humans are…” Aeryn said, shrugging her shoulders.

“Anyway,” Pilot interrupted them, “He also asked the DRDs to stockpile food and drink within easy reach of the aforementioned couch and, moreover, he had them transfer the device you brought back from Earth to his new retreat.”

“You mean the TV?” Aeryn asked.

“Yes. And all the tapes that came with it.” Pilot said. “He intends to remain there until this pandemic has passed or a cure has been found - whatever comes first - and he refuses to change his mind about it.”

“I don’t think any of that warrants our intervention, Pilot. And I am hungry and bored and I stopped caring about him or anything else a long time ago. All I care about is my stomachs, so see ya all later.” Rygel said, whirring out of the den towards the mess hall.

“Yeah. I agree with the Slug.” Chiana said. “Leave him in his man cave, who cares?” And she also left the den heading towards the hangar bay to go on another “eyesight testing” illegal ride in a transport pod.

Noranti, still groggy from being tranquilised with a dose large enough to knock out a Budong, just yawned and shuffled out heading for her quarters and her comfortably super hard bed.

“Officer Sun? What about you? Will you at least assist me in bringing John Crichton back among us?” Pilot said, putting his last hopes in the woman who, allegedly, loved the Human more than anybody else in the universe.

“Um. There’s no harm in leaving him there for a while, Pilot. Is there, really?” She asked, not wanting to appear too callous about it since Pilot had already shown reproach towards her earlier.

“No. I guess there is no harm, however…” Pilot said but was promptly interrupted by Aeryn, who was clearly not interested in his pro-John arguments.

“I know you said that John has barricaded all entrances to his tier but, Pilot, what do you think?” Aeryn asked with eager hope in her voice “Is there any chance that we can tie D’Argo to the back of one of the DRDs and get him safely to John through a vent or a duct or something?”

THE END


End file.
